This is not my garden.  Did you think maybe?  I can only hope.  First of all chipmunks have long since eaten all my crocus bulbs.  And second, my garden still looks like this right now:

This is, instead, a lovely handwritten note sent by a friend through snail mail, to surprise me on the first day of spring.  And it did indeed surprise me.  But more importantly it made me smile.  A lot.  The whole effect, the beautiful flowers and the getting something in the mail, made my day and I want to say thank you.  Thank you very much.  You know who you are.

In our part of the world it doesn’t look much like spring, though we got rain last night instead of more snow, so there is hope.  And a professor friend of mine posted on Facebook yesterday that the sandhill cranes were back.  She lives an hour south of me, so I expected I’d hear them soon.  They have such a distinctive cry you can’t confuse it with anything else.  And do you know what?  This very morning as Katie and I were out front slogging along in the soggy yard looking for the perfect spot there arose from the treetops across the street such a screeching that we both jumped.  The sound bounced off the houses and careened around spruce trees.  I never saw them, but it was evident they were right there!  I laughed out loud and Katie looked at me in question.  Did you hear that girl!?  Did you here THAT!  And what happened next just added proof to the pudding.

A red winged blackbird sang.  And sang again so there was no mistake.  Sometime last night, while we were lying awake listening to the rain on the roof the real spring arrived in my very own neighborhood.

Katie and I took the camera out back to see if we happened to have anything popping up from the ground.  All we found was this:

Do you see?  Let me get closer:

It’s not much, but in combination with my birds, well, I can finally let my shoulders fall back from up around my ears where they were shivering.  I can take a deep breath and taste the warm muggy days to come.  I can look out over my snow covered yard and envision the pear tree and redbud blooming.  Someday there will be daffodils after all.  I had so little faith.

Katie says all today means to her is that there is less snow on the deck and more sticks that need breaking up into sheltie sized pieces.  She thinks that’s good enough for now.

I think she’s a smart dog.